


just lying to ourselves

by AssumingMinds19



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, F/F, Happy Ending, One Shot, Returneth from a long hiatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssumingMinds19/pseuds/AssumingMinds19
Summary: “What if there’s no “one”?” She demanded, waving her hands as tears filled her eyes. “Or “two”, or “three", or “four” or “five”? What if there’s no such thing as true love… but we’re too afraid to admit it, so we keep on dressing up?”Kara’s voice cracked, and her eyes grew distant as if she were looking into the future.“We keep on pretending to be something that we are not?” She choked out, continuing as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. “We keep turning our lives upside down, losing ourselves… in something that we hope is better than what we think that we are?”Lena took a deep breath when Kara’s eyes snapped back from whatever they’d been looking at and stared intently into her own.“What if that something that we’re looking for… just doesn’t exist?”
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 44
Kudos: 387





	just lying to ourselves

“You’re the one who wanted to go,” Lena smiled as Kara swirled her cup of coffee with a brooding expression.  


The film had been boring for Lena, but anything that wasn’t a documentary tended to be boring for Lena. Still, Kara was as obsessive about romantic comedies as she was about potstickers, so she was surprised that Kara wasn’t sniffing into her shoulder by the time the final kiss rolled around. But the expression on Kara’s face had been downright depressing when they left the theatre and Lena had thought getting a late-night coffee might help. So far, Kara had downed two and a half cups, but her expression hadn’t changed. 

“I thought I would feel better,” Kara grumbled.

Lena’s smile softened, and she pushed away her empty cup.

“And?” She questioned. 

Kara shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled out, before lifting her cup to down the rest and she all but slammed the empty cup back on the table, startling Lena enough to make her wince.

“It’s such a load of bullshit!” Kara spat darkly.

Lena arched an eyebrow, pointedly returning her cup daintily to the wooden table.

“Bullshit?”

“Show me a movie that takes place six months after they get together,” Kara replied, frustration leaking out of her. “When everything falls apart.”

Lena’s eyes drew close in concern at Kara’s angry tone. For someone so perpetually, and annoyingly upbeat, hearing her so downcast worried and saddened her. Lena wondered if it had something to do with Kara’s recent breakup, though she had seemed fine with it earlier in the day. In all honesty, Kara had seemed even more energetic than usual these past few weeks. Always wanting to do something, or calling Lena with her latest harebrained idea.

“Kara…” Lena tried to soothe.

“It’s just that I don’t think that any of us know who _we_ really are,” Kara answered agitation and hurt layering her voice as she gestured to herself. “So how are we supposed to know who ‘The One’ is?”

Before Lena could formulate a response, Kara stood to her feet and stalked over to a nearby couple, practically sitting in each other’s laps.

“How do you know he’s ‘The One’?” She demanded from the lady in the pair, drawing their confused attention. “Is it because you wear black, drink cappuccinos, you both have tattoos?”

Lena readied herself to stand and interrupt but wasn’t quick enough before Kara rounded on all the occupants of the cafe

“Who here has ever been dumped?” Kara called out, raising her own hand.

She caught everyone’s attention with her words, but no one raised their hands to follow suit. Still, 

Kara pressed on.

“And who here has dumped someone?” She continued, raising her other hand. “We’ve all been in love. But we never know that it’s not true love until it’s over?”

Lena watched Kara intently, worry growing at the way her face filled with sadness and pain.

“What if there’s no “one”?” She demanded, waving her hands as tears filled her eyes. “Or "two", or “three", or "four" or "five"? What if there’s no such thing as true love... but we’re too afraid to admit it, so we keep on dressing up?”

Kara’s voice cracked, and her eyes grew distant as if she were looking into the future.

“We keep on pretending to be something that we are not?” She choked out, continuing as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. “We keep turning our lives upside down, losing ourselves... in something that we hope is better than what we think that we are?”

Lena took a deep breath when Kara’s eyes snapped back from whatever they’d been looking at and stared intently into her own.

“What if that something that we’re looking for... just doesn’t exist?”

Silence descended over the cafe, everyone’s eyes trained on Kara’s, who now finished as a look of abject mortification filled her face. Without a word, Kara grabbed her jacket and fled the shop, leaving Lena to rummage for a tip and follow as fast as she could. She didn’t have to look far, Kara stood waiting for her under a sloped roof no less than twenty metres away, but still, Lena rushed to her side. Seeing her cry softly as she leaned against the building, Lena felt a sudden protective urge swell in her chest.

“Are you okay?” She asked gently.

“Yeah, fine,” Kara sniffed, wiping away a tear with the back of her hand. “I was just working on my fear of public speaking.”

Lena smiled at Kara’s weak attempt at humour, but the other women didn’t seem overly cheered. Instead, she looked into Lena’s eyes with a vacant and lost expression.

“Why does everything just have to be so... ...just so?”

“I don’t know,” Lena answered, shaking her head.

Kara bit her lip, before pulling Lena in for a tight hug, and Lena gripped her back just as firmly.

“You’re shaking,” Lena whispered, rubbing Kara’s back.

“You let me drink all that caffeine,” Kara sniffed into her neck, trying to laugh and sounding more like a strangled sob.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she continued, pulling away.

Lena gave her a lopsided grin.

“Maybe you’re getting your period.”

That elicited a smile from Kara and a push to the shoulder.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Then she was staring at Lena again with that same lost look, something else mixed into now. Wanting. Longing. Carefully, gently, with the back of her long sleeve, Lena reached up to caress a stain of a tear from Kara’s cheek. Her fingers traced the delicate strands of Kara’s eyelashes while they stared at each other. Time seemed to halt in the cold National City streets for a moment as Lena’s breath caught in her throat and Kara’s eyes darted down to Lena’s lips, growing darker with that same wanting expression.

Lena’s fingers lingered on Kara’s cheek as an unspoken question passed between them, something Lena didn’t even know the answer to logically, even if her body seemed to. Shuffling closer as if by instinct, Lena craned her neck up the slight distance, slowly and watching Kara’s face, before she pressed her lips to her’s.

It was a gentle kiss, softer then she had expected and tasted like the salt from Kara’s fallen tears, but in an instant, Lena knew she wanted this more then she had ever wanted anything, and it sent a bloom of panic to her heart, and she leaned away.

“Hold on, maybe we should wait a second,” she cautioned softly, but Kara shook her head and followed her mouth as it pulled back.

“No,” Kara answered with hooded eyes, grabbing the front of Lena’s shirt and yanking them back towards each other.

* * *

Kara wanted her. Kara wanted her more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life. Her whole body felt confused and ablaze by Lena all at once. The coffee shop they’d drank in was only a block away from Kara’s apartment, but Kara swore that if she didn’t get Lena into her bed within the next few minutes, she would tear her clothes off in the street. Lena seemed to agree with her, stopping Kara from pulling her along almost every few metres tug her back into another kiss in a shadowed corner.

Every one made Kara feel like she could soar.

Finally, they were stumbling through the door, laughing and tripping over themselves and fumbling at each other’s clothes the second it slammed behind them. Kara wouldn’t call herself discreet, but she’d never been happier to know Alex was working tonight then she was in that moment. Her bedroom was dark, except for the glow from the ceiling of her stick on stars and the low purple light in the corner of her room, that washed both their bodies in strange shadows as they kissed and pulled the panel doors closed.

Kara pulled at Lena’s jacket when paused for shallow breath. It hit the floor the same time the doors finally kicked closed, and Kara wasted no time shrugging her own off so she could pull Lena closer to the bed. Lena melded to her body, her hands rolling up her back to thread into Kara’s hair loosely, enough invitation for Kara to pull at the hem of her shirt and pull it up and off her.

Kara took in a sharp breath when Lena moved to press trailing kissed down the side of her neck, and she pressed her forehead into the crook of Lena’s shoulder with a groan. Pulling Lena tight to her, Kara’s fingers splayed out on the bare skin of her lower back, before trailing up and deftly undoing the clasp of her bra. Once she’d shrugged that off, Kara pulled away slightly, her mouth watering at the sight of Lena’s pale and purple ghosted skin. Unable to stop herself, she caressed her breasts before slowly pressing her mouth to their pearl and then carefully moving her lips further down her stomach until she reached the hemline of Lena’s pants.

She kissed her way back up and raised her arms dutifully as Lena pulled her shirt off in one swift movement, reaching for Kara’s bra too until they were both pressed bare-chested against each other. Kara stumbled backwards, half falling onto the mattress and crawling back with her elbows as Lena followed and hovered over her. Still continuing to capture her lips, Kara smiled into Lena’s mouth as the other woman pushed the pile of clothes and half the mound of pillows off of it so she could lay Kara down properly.

Then there was a moment, a slight pause where bother their consciousness ascended from the haze and Lena was just a few inches away, staring at her with Kara’s hands on the side of her face and staring down at her with a soft smile. And Kara was staring up at her too, feeling every moment and heartbeat and returning her smile, tracing her thumb gently across Lena’s lower lip to part it. Relishing that Lena leaned into her touch before she let herself be pulled down more.

And then all Kara could see was colours bursting in her mind like fireworks, as close as she’d ever been before to understanding what the hell she was supposed to be doing with her life.

* * *

Lena woke up slowly, the lingering smell of sea-salt and sunlight pressed into her nostrils and she wondered why it made a shiver run over her body. She frowned into the sheets, realising that they weren’t hers and that’s the familiar scent came from. Her waking dreams lingered along with the pleasant soreness of her body as the night before came back in a rush, and she realised that the glow she felt then still filled her entire body.

Happiness. 

Lena stretched out with her fingers then, hoping to find bare skin, but frowning when she touched nothing but empty sheets. Opening her eyes to the morning light, she searched for Kara’s presence. Still, her attention was drawn upwards when she heard the sound of the door to Kara’s bedroom clicking gently open and smiled when the woman herself entered slowly, tiptoeing over to a pair of her shoes.

“Hey,” Lena called out gently with a smile, drawing Kara’s attention who stared at her like a deer caught in headlights.

“Hi,” Kara replied with a smile, but it seemed strained, confusing Lena when she instantly looked away and continued to walk towards her shoes, discarded by the bed.

Lena sat up slowly, the ache in her muscles still there, watching as Kara slipped them on.

“Where are you going?” She questioned her.

Kara bit her lip before replying.

“The office, to write.”

Lena snorted.

“Oh no, you’re not,” she answered playfully, pulling at Kara’s wrist until she fell back on the bed with Kara on top of her. Looping her arms around her waist, she continued to grin up at her. 

“You’re staying right here. Where I can see you.”

Kara let out a light laugh, but there was no mirth in it, and Lena’s fogged brain cleared enough to realise that Kara was half-pressing herself away.

“I really have to go.”

“When do you ever actually go to the office to write,” Lena countered.

“I know,” Kara replied. “That’s why I have to go.”

“Wait,” Lena answered with a smile, still slightly drunk on her memories of last night. “I’ll make us breakfast.”

Lena smiled too, but she pressed away more firmly.

“It’s okay,” she answered as she crawled off Lena and stood to her feet. “I’m late. I’ll see you later.”

Lena frowned, her happy mood dipping quickly as bordering clarity made itself known. Sitting up in bed, she followed Kara with her eyes as she walked to the door.

“Is this about Andrea?” She questioned.

Kara hesitated, before shaking her head.

“No.”

Lena nodded.

“I’m gonna tell her,” she answered.

Kara stared at her for a few seconds.

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

It hit Lena then. The look of Kara’s face wasn’t uncertainty as much as it was regret. Over what they’d done. Over not wanting to have done it at all.

“Oh…”

Kara watched her for a few more seconds before smiling weakly again.

“We’ll talk about this later. Okay?”

Lena shrugged, nodding once more.

“Yeah, okay.”

Kara hovered awkwardly.

“Stay as long as you like,” she said, opening her door. “You know where everything is.”

Lena looked away, stunned for a few minutes as she listened to Kara leave the apartment. It was only when the sound of the apartment door closing made her blink, that she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged herself.

Shattered, she tried to stop herself from completely falling apart. 

* * *

Kara groaned into her tea.

“I’m the one who told her to start dating, and then she did!” She explained in a fast rattle. “I didn’t get to see her much, then the thing with William happened and seeing her with-”

“Andrea.”

“Whatever,” Kara groaned. “I just wanted to be with her. It was a huge mistake. Huge, big, fat mistake. We’re friends. We’re great as friends.”

Alex gave her a strange look, and Kara shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She just couldn’t stop playing the night before in her mind over and over again, each time with an increasing sense of regret and fear. Why had she ruined everything so spectacularly with Lena? She’d been feeling so lost and alone, and Lena had been there the way she always was and even in the mix of everything else, Kara just felt in that moment a need to connect.

What an idiot.

“So what are you gonna do about it?” Alex asked.

Kara pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I have no idea!” She groaned. “She takes these things so seriously, and the last thing I wanna do is hurt her.”

* * *

Lena ran her hand over her chin, staring out the window or her dorm room contemplatively.

“What if I’m in love with her?” She questioned, making Sam sigh from her spot beside her.

Her friend had seen the second Lena walked in the door that something was wrong, and it took Lena’s resolve all of two seconds to crumble like wet cardboard under her gaze and the entire story of the night before to spill out of her. So much confusion was swirling in Lena’s head right now, she was surprised she hadn’t entered an automotive haze, but instead of shut downing the way she always did whenever she couldn’t deal with a situation, she was drowning in the intensity of her own emotions. She could still feel Kara’s touch on her skin, and her smell on her clothes. The press of her weight on top of her and the way her fingers and tongue moved inside of her.

But she also felt the sting of rejection, and the guilt of doing it at all, and the carefree abandon of wanting to do it again.

“Are you?” Sam questioned.

Lena looked over at her friend, feeling pained.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe.”

Sam looked more serious than she ever had, but at Lena’s reply, a familiar smile graced her face.

“What does that mean?”

Lena grimaced.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I just... don’t want things to be weird with us.”

That was the last thing she wanted. But knowing what she didn’t want wasn’t the same as knowing what she did.

“If you’re looking to me for answers, I’m flattered... but you’ve come to the wrong place,” Sam replied, stretching back in her chair.

Lena drew a deep breath, leaning forward and propping her head up with her arms on her knees and head in her hands.

“If I just pretend nothing happened, I’ll be lying to myself about feelings I might be feeling,” she tried to explain. “But if I tell her how I am feeling, she’ll run from it. or worse, she’ll just… go along with it to stop me from hurting. That’s what she does. I know that better than anyone. That’s the last thing I want.”

Sam gave her a sympathetic look.

“Being yourself, not being yourself. Welcome to my world.”

Lena sighed again before turning to look back out the window.

* * *

Lena and Kara walked slowly side by side through along the foreshore that night, neither of them having said anything to the other beyond hello when Kara had appeared at Lena’s door. Wordlessly, Lena had grabbed her coat, and they’d started to walk. It was a cold enough night, but Kara was acutely aware of keeping at least a foot of space between them as they wandered down steps and through and past metal sculptures.

Kara struggled quietly, still lost for exactly she wanted to say to Lena, fit to burst between apologies, rambling and explanations. Casting side looks at Lena constantly in an attempt to read her face, by the tenth minute of silence, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Does this feel weird to you?” She exclaimed, pulling to a stop.

Lena let out a relieved breath at her words and gave her a weak smile.

“Yes.”

Kara smiled too.

“Okay, well maybe we should talk about this.”

“I think that would be good,” Lena nodded.

Kara bit the inside of her cheek, trying to direct some of her emotion into a coherent thought.

“It’s just I had this feeling, things might get strange between us because of what happened last night… and I don’t want that to happen,” she said in a rush, drawing a quick breath at the relief that filled Lena’s eyes.

“Me neither.”

“‘Cause we’re too good together to let that come between us,” Kara finished earnestly.

Lena’s lips worked silently for a second, her eyes darting over Kara’s face before she replied in a pondering voice.

“It was… a mistake.”

Kara’s relief ballooned in her chest too, along with a pang of something else that she didn’t want to contemplate and quickly pushed aside.

“You think so?”

Lena nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

Some of the tension faded from Kara’s shoulders at that.

“I think you’re right,” she replied in a cautious tone. “I think that we just got carried away in the moment and... ...you know.”

Lena stared at her again before replying in a steady voice.

“Yes.”

The silence stretched between them, Kara shifted slightly on her feet, wondering why the change in energy between them had become even stranger, not better.

“Last night was really special to me,” she said honestly and firmly, holding Lena’s eye contact. 

“Because you’re really special to me, Lena. But that’s all it was. It was an incredibly special night. I just got worried that maybe we’d give it more importance than we should.”

Kara wondered if she should keep speaking, reiterating apologies, regrets or platitudes, but the truth was, she wasn’t exactly sure if she meant them, and the last thing she wanted to do was lie to Lena.

“No,” Lena finally seemed to manage to say. “I’m totally with you.”

“Great,” Kara said, slightly stunned and flustered, but a smile still stretched across her face which Lena didn’t return.

“You didn’t tell Andrea, did you?” Kara asked, trying to fill the silence.

“No,” Lena answered distractedly. “No.”

Kara nodded in agreement, more relief flooding her body.

“It’s probably better not to.”

Lena nodded.

“Yeah.”

There was another awkward pause between them that Kara tried to shake off with a smile.

“I feel so much lighter. Do you?” Kara questioned.

Lena blinked and for the first time broke eye contact by looking down and nodding.

“Yes.”

Kara didn’t drop her smile, but it felt… wrong. Forced.

“So, you wanna go fill up on vittles?” She asked, desperate for some return to normality.

“Sure,” Lena replied, starting to walk once more.

But they only made it a few paces before she stopped again and turned to Kara with an apologetic frown.

“Actually, I shouldn’t,” she said softly, not meeting Kara’s eyes. “I’d like to, but I still have some work to do.”

Kara’s heart squeezed in her chest.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Lena breathed out. “It’s pretty important.”

“Okay,” Kara accepted, every fibre of her being screaming at her to say something more. “You’ll call me?”

Lena nodded, still looking past her.

“I will.”

“Yeah?”

Lena nodded once more.

“Yeah.”

With a vague wave of her hand, Lena turned and walked back the way she came. Kara watched her retreating back for a few seconds, become shoving her hands in her pockets and walking away in the opposite direction.

* * *

One Month Later…

* * *

“Lena Luthor, where the hell have you been?” Kara strained, walking to Lena’s side who didn’t even move at her words and just kept staring out over the bay.

Kara waited a second for a reply, before she asked again, staring down at her.

“Where have you been?”

Lena’s face remained annoyingly blank, but at least her eyes flickered up towards her.

“Working on my project,” she answered neutrally.

Kara frowned slightly, easing into the vacant space beside her.

“What’s going on? How are you?”

Lena drew a breath before she answered.

“Good,” she nodded. “Busy.”

Kara nodded too, tightly before looking out over the water herself.

“Yeah, me too. I’m all done with my articles for the year,” she tried to inject a smile with her words, but Lena didn’t bite. Her eyes just filled with conflict so apparent, even Kara could read it.

“You wanna go do something?” Kara finished awkwardly, hoping that Lena would take the rope she’d thrown her and that whatever the hell was lingering between them would finally be banished.

The corners of Lena’s mouth tightened at Kara’s words.

“No,” she shook her head, before standing quickly and moving to walk away, avoiding eye contact once more. “You know, I should really get back to work.”

“Okay,” Kara replied weakly.

Lena hovered, before jerking her head, stuffing her hands in her pockets and stepping away.

“So I guess I’ll see you around.”

Kara stood quickly now, feeling panicked.

“But I’m gone in a few days,” she called. “Guess you won’t have time to plan my ‘bon voyage’ party.”

Lena nodded in acknowledgement.

“Oh yeah. Argo. You must be excited.”

Kara played with the frayed sleeves of her jumper.

“You know me,” she quirked a grin. “Any excuse to travel.”

“I’ll just.. be here, on Earth,” Lena shrugged.

Kara perked up. “When will you be done with your project? Do you wanna go celebrate?”

“No, I’m leaving right after it. Heading to Metropolis,” Lena shut down with another shake of her head.

Kara could feel her chest tighten, but she nodded all the same.

“Okay,” she answered quietly. “I guess we’ll talk.”

Lena nodded too and turned back around, and suddenly the overfill in Kara’s body couldn’t take it anymore.

“What’s going on?” She demanded, exasperated and impatient, jittery for an answer.

“What?” Lena scoffed, defensiveness obvious in her voice.

“What?” Kara cried, raining her hands and gesturing between them both. “This. What is this?”

“I don’t know,” Lena bit out in answer. “Nothing’s going on.”

“Really?” Kara batted back. “Because when I spoke to Andrea, she told me that you broke up with her.”

Lena looked away, rolling her eyes moodily.

“Is that what this is about?” Kara demanded. “Because I told you not to tell her anything.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lena strained back.

“Well, are you upset?”

“No.”

Kara blinked, confusion growing along with her irritation.

“So what’s going on?”

“I don’t know!” Lena snapped back, her voice rising for the first time during their conversation. “Things are different!”

Kara swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“But I thought we talked about that?” She questioned. “I thought that we said that we didn’t want anything to be different. I thought we said that having sex was just a huge mistake. It was weeks ago now. I thought we’d go back to being just friends-”

“Why was it a mistake?” Lena cut across her, stepping forward.

“What?”

“You and me?” Lena demanded. “Why was that a mistake? I’m curious.”

Emotions rolled in Kara’s mind like a filing cabinet, and for a second, she was lost for words underneath the intensity of Lena’s gaze, now demanding an answer.

“We’ve already talked about it…” She answered finally. “You wanna go over it again?”

“No, you want to talk? Let’s talk!” Lena spat, her face cracking from its blankness with anger and pain. “Was it a mistake because anything that even comes close to real intimacy freaks you out? Or just that I’m not good enough for you?”

Kara’s heart shuddered in her chest, the feeling of her best friend slipping away through her fingers, making her gather the little courage she had left to step into Lena’s space.

“Lena, you kissed me, and I responded... but I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it was going to end our friendship,” she replied earnestly.

“Yeah, neither would l,” Lena replied, sounding pained and bitter.

Kara sighed.

“Lena, if I could take it all back, I would.”

“Take it,” Lena shrugged. “It’s yours. Put it on the shelf with all your other ill-thought-out ideas.”

It was like she had shoved a knife into Kara’s brain with her words, even though there was no malice in Lena’s eyes, they were still cruel. Kara felt tears spring in her eyes, but she battled to keep them at bay as she shifted on her feet and tried to absorb it enough to croak out an answer.

“Why are you doing this?” She managed finally.

Lena stared at her for a minute, looking near tears herself now, before she finally spoke in a brittle voice.

“Look, that night was as much a surprise to me as it was to you... but being with you was like going to a place I had never been before!” Her voice rose in volume and passion. “Then, after you fell asleep, I just laid there, staring up at those cheap fluorescent stars you have stuck on your ceiling... and after a while, they just started forming a pattern…”

Lena bit her lower lip and closed her eyes briefly before she continued.

“This weird glow in the dark pattern that linked together our entire relationship. And for the first time, everything seemed clear to me, like one logical progression. It felt like you and I were the greatest plan ever made, and I had nothing to do with it!”

Kara found herself caught in the flow of words, each one hitting her like a battering ram.

“Being with you made me feel that maybe I didn’t have to keep planning anymore because it felt like I was actually living. And that for once in my life I wouldn’t have to work so hard at being happy!” A tear slipped down Lena’s cheek as her voice broke on the last word. “That it could just happen.”

More tears fell, and Lena didn’t even move to wipe them away.

“Nothing will ever hurt me as much, as your reaction to that same experience.”

Kara’s heart squeezed.

“Lena-”

“What? What?!” Lena cut her off. “You wanna go to the park and pretend like nothing happened? I can’t do that.”

Kara bit the inside of her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking back her own tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“Look, you don’t have to say anything,” Lena breathed in reply. “I have to go. Have fun in Argo.”

* * *

“Good afternoon, folks. Sorry about the delay. We’ll be headed out for the runway in just a minute.”

Lena tapped her fingers rhythmically agains’t the armrest as she stared through the small window and out across the tarmac. As nervous as she always got before she flew, her frustration at the delay surpassed it. Checking her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, Lena let out a huff before she pressed the call button for the flight attendant.

“Can I help you, miss?” The attendant questioned when he appeared, closing the overhead luggage panel above her.

Lena had a brief flashback to another time in her life, and the faintest smile ghosted her lips.

“I don’t know, can… you bring me a glass of water, please?” Lena questioned.

“I’m sorry, miss,” the man apologised. “You’re gonna have to wait till we’re airborne. It will just be a few minutes.”

Lena nodded her thanks, even though it rankled her. She let out another sigh and turned to look back out the window. It wasn’t like she was thirsty anyway, she just wanted something to do to take her mind off everything else. But trying not to picture Kara on her own, flying to planets unknown. It wasn’t so easy, it seemed.

“I love you.”

Lena felt like her brain short-circuited, or maybe she was hallucinating, or maybe all the pining of the last month had caused her to truly go mad, because she could have sworn she had just heard Kara’s voice.

“I love you, Lena Luthor.”

Lena’s mouth grew dry, locked in her seat she couldn’t look away from the window until the man sitting next to her nudged her with his elbow.

“I think she’s talking to you.”

Lena blinked, panic vibrating at her very nerve endings, before she braved it enough to risk a glance forward only to see, shockingly, Kara Danvers herself staring down at her from the aisle with a smile so wide it nearly cracked her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something else, but before she could, the flight attendant from before appeared at her shoulder.

“Please, miss, you have to take your seat now.”

Kara blinked at her for a second, before walking to her directed seat, two rows in front of Lena and taking it as directed. But the second the flight attendant walked past her, she turned in it and nearly bent over the back of it into the people sitting behind her to speak to Lena once more

“Did you hear what I said?” She called out earnestly, the people she was talking over, turning to look at Lena too, following the conversation. “I love you, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you.”

The man next to Lena eyed her sideways, but all she could do was swallow. Kara sounded honest enough, she’d booked a seat on Lena’s plane after all, but Kara was prone to do reckless things on a whim. The pain in Lena’s heart still sat oppressively on her. The last thing she needed right now was to be treated like a fling because Kara felt guilty. 

“It’s too late,” Lena replied sadly.

The smile on Kara’s face vanished to be replaced by a determined look that Lena hadn’t seen since their night together.

“No,” Kara batted back, serious and earnest all at once. “Everything that you said about that night, I felt it too... and it scared me. I was scared to lose you.”

Lena leaned forward in her seat at Kara’s words, letting herself get caught in them despite herself.

“But I was even more scared to let myself love you... because every time I let love in, somebody takes it away... and it just hurts so bad,” Kara finished another smile gracing her face. “But I’m tired of being afraid.”

“Miss,” the flight attendant said with slight exasperation in his voice, popping up at Kara’s side. “I need you to turn around and put your seatbelt on.”

Kara turned to face him, grabbing his shoulders.

“I just made the most important decision in my entire life... and you want me to put on my seatbelt?” She questioned, and a ripple of chuckles ran through the eavesdropping passengers.

The flight attendant just nodded, irritation plain on his face.

“Yes, I do.”

Kara hesitated for a second as if she couldn’t believe what she heard before she dropped in her seat and did as she was bid.

“Okay.”

Before Lena could even think about her actions, she was opening her seatbelt next and leaning over the heads of the people in front of her.

“What about six months from now?” She questioned, Kara, unbuckling her belt to turn back round to face her just as quickly. “How do I know you’ll be happy then?”

“Well, how do I know you’ll be happy?” Kara threw back at her. “I mean, how do we know anything? How do we know the plane isn’t gonna crash?”

That last sentence caused a ripple of unease to run through the other passengers.

“We’re gonna crash?”

As if summoned, the flight attendant appeared again, making no attempt this time to hide his annoyance.

“I’m not asking you again,” he said to both of them. “You’re required by law to fasten your seatbelts, both of you, now!”

Lena huffed, confusion raging in her, but she slid back down in her seat and buckled her belt slowly. Staring at the back of Kara’s head, she mulled over what she was feeling and what she wanted, uncertainty and confusion mixing and merging together along with the chaos of the object of it all’s sudden appearance when Kara spoke again, her words carrying back to Lena even though she didn’t turn around.

“I need you,” she said flatly. “And that’s a really hard thing for me to accept... but it’s a whole lot easier than imagining my life without you.”

Lena frowned, sunlight peeking through the cracks in her heart at Kara’s words.

“I wanna do laundry with you, Lena.”

The honest humour of that statement smacked her in the face, and all at once, a grin grew on Lena’s face, and nothing else really mattered at all. The pattern that had burned in her mind, their entire relationship, burned clear once more.

“But you send your laundry out,” she called back.

Lena could hear the return smile in Kara’s voice when she answered.   


“Not anymore.”

The man seated next to Lena tilted out into the aisle now, calling to Kara with a smile of his own.

“You wanna switch?”

“Yeah!” Kara replied, both of them unbuckling their belts and standing to swap seats.

“Will you two please sit down?!”

Kara laughed at the flight attendant’s call, but moved quickly, ducking around the man and diving into his vacated seat. She clipped the belt closed, and Lena’s first reaction was to lean into her for a kiss and reach up to cup her face. Kara’s lips almost touched hers when she pulled back suddenly.

“What?” Lena asked. “What is it?”

“It’s just, the laundry thing is a metaphor, right?” Kara questioned, looking slightly ill at the possibility, making Lena laugh.

“Don’t worry, I’ll show you how.”

Before she could kiss her now, the plane started to take off, the roar of the engines bringing back Lena’s fear as she leaned back in her seat, holding Kara’s hand tight as she started to count down.

“One, two, three, four…

“You should just try breathing,” Kara’s voice interrupted through. “It’ll help you relax.”

“…six, seven, eight…”

“Trust me.”

Lena opened her eyes at the words, the panic in her suddenly ebbing at the simpleness of it all. Turning her head to look at Kara, who was staring down at her with such gentleness, Lena was able to take her first easy breath during a plane take off in her life.

A small smile grew on her face, and Kara smiled back before finally, they kissed.

**Author's Note:**

> Back from that long hiatus, friends. Drop a comment below if you’re feeling it, I always appreciate them :)


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